


Ice / (anchored to laughter)

by Irrelevancy



Series: More than Friends [4]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Brutality, Dehumanization, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Execution, Explicit Sexual Content, Happy Ending, I swear there's a twist, Implied/Referenced Torture, Justice, M/M, Marineford Arc, Multi, Plot Twists, Rape, Rape Roleplay, Self-Worth Issues, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, World Government
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:19:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22320172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrelevancy/pseuds/Irrelevancy
Summary: "We are gathered here today for the execution of Portgas D. 'Fire Fist' Ace, charged with the crime of piracy."Challenge 1! Scene: stage, kink: identity porn.
Relationships: Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco/Sabo, Masked Deuce/Portgas D. Ace, Portgas D. Ace/Other(s)
Series: More than Friends [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1525001
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36
Collections: Happy Hornings!





	Ice / (anchored to laughter)

**Author's Note:**

> THIS WAS SUCH A FUN CHALLENGE Y'ALL i wrote far more than i really anticipated but here we are.
> 
> Title's from [Hilda Hilst](https://touchmycoat.tumblr.com/post/190322981907/wishbzne-god-a-surface-of-ice-anchored-to).
> 
> Please see tags!! and content warnings at end if you're unsure. (Also let me know if there's a better way to tag this?)

They led him up to the stage cuffed and blindfolded.

"We are gathered here today for the execution of Portgas D. 'Fire Fist' Ace, charged with the crime of piracy," the Admiral announced in a deep, impatient drawl behind him. The weight of the irons strained Ace's shoulders as they were lashed behind him, and he bit back a gasp when the Admiral kicked and brought him to his knees.

The hand of the Corporal on his elbow, which had supported his stumbling all the way up, was hurriedly pulled away with an uncomfortable little cough.

"With the power vested in me by the World Government, I hereby sentence the criminal to death by decapitation," the Admiral continued to say, ominously close behind Ace. This was the man responsible for securing Ace first to the rigs, then to the walls. This was the man responsible for the aching bruises felt deeply in Ace's bones.

 _This is how they conduct an execution,_ Ace scoffed bitterly to himself. _Kill a man's soul before they kill his body._

"But there is one more charge to be made against him today."

Ace's heart dropped down to his stomach.

"Announce your father's name to the world."

"Edward Newgate," Ace bit out. He was on his knees in front of god knew how many people, covered in bruises and blood and his head was about to be chopped off—and the Admiral wanted to pull this stunt _now_? "My father's name is Edward New—"

"Bullshit," the Admiral interrupted coldly. "Your father was a world class criminal. You've got the blood of a devil running through you."

_Ace. My name is Portgas D. Ace. My mother gave me every part of that name. My father gave me the tattoo on my back._

"Your true name," the Admiral declared, voice cold like the rot of leaves on swamp water in winter, "is Gol D. Ace."

"The fuck it is," Ace said weakly, as the audience below him gasped and hissed. _Demon_ , someone yelled loud enough for Ace to make out, all the way up on this heat-burnt stage. "My name is Portgas D. A—"

"You are a criminal in the apprehension of the World Government," the Admiral interrupted. "Your crime is so great that you don't even have a designation number; you are nobody."

 _Nobody. Fuck you, I wish_.

And the bastard had said "crime" in the singular. Nothing Ace has done counted, was the point he was making. Nothing Ace has done in his own name would ever come out from beneath the shadow of his father's sins, the evil embedded in his blood.

Ace felt his whole body start to sink with the weight of the irons. He'd set out for sea at seventeen, he'd _vowed_ — But all for nothing? All for this moment of inglorious reckoning on a goddamn Marine execution platform where his dehumanization was being made a _show_?

He didn't fucking think so. Not without a goddamn fight at least.

Ace yanked hard against his chains, and the range of motion he managed startled a round of horrified gasps from the audience. The clanging was all bark though, because the only bite was the cuffs in Ace's wrists and ankles and he couldn't get _anywhere_ —

A knife, chilly metal, snagged in the skin of his neck. Ace stifled his yelp just a second too late, and shivered when he felt liquid trickling down, scarily cold along his overheated, sweaty neck.

"What's the matter?" he panted, eager, so eager to hold onto _something_ before he went. There must be something within reach that Ace could still sink his incisors into and tear apart, literally or metaphorically. "The great Admiral gets cold feet on an actual execution stage? Just slit my throat already then, why waste anymore time?"

"Your execution will be terminal," the Admiral replied coldly. The blade was removed from its touch to Ace's skin, and Ace could hear it disappear back into a sheathe with a strange scraping noise. A gloved hand wove its way into Ace's hair to keep his head facing forward, and an ominous shiver buzzed its way down the length of Ace's spine. "So your punishment will come before."

"My punish—"

"Corporal," the Admiral interrupted. "Prepare him."

"...I don't—"

"That's," perfectly icy, "an order, Corporal."

 _Don't do it Corporal._ Because Ace, thinking of the fingers in his hair, knew with awful certainty what was about to happen. But just because he knew what was going to happen didn't mean he knew how he felt about it, or what could be done about it. All he knew was that they couldn't make him beg for it or to be spared it—so all his wishes in vain for the triumph of humanity over whatever the fuck the Marines thought they were doing had to be made in private.

_Don't do it Corporal. Don't become a rapist for your government. That's the kind of thing you never come back from._

There were a pair of shaking hands at Ace's belt buckle, and Ace felt all his hope and sympathy drain out of him with a harsh hiss of breath. The Corporal's hands jerked guiltily, but did not stop with the unclasping. The sliding out. The unzipping. The dropping.

The Corporal straightened up and stepped away, tripping a bit over his own feet as he went. Ace called him a nasty word in his mind, as he was left to contend with the ordeal of being displayed naked (boots and his pants bunched around his knees hardly counted) in front of the whole fucking world.

"So what's the plan," he managed to croak out, "rape me and _then_ murder me? Are you just entirely giving up on the Marines' public image or what?"

"An execution is not murder," the Admiral replied with a nasty snarl buried deep in his words. Ace realized that this man standing at his shoulder, whom Ace has never even actually seen, _hated_ him. It was a familiarly chilly stab of knowledge, that he would once again be hurt by his father's ever-present infamy, that there was a man on this stage perfectly willing to _mutilate_ Ace just because Ace was Roger's son. "This would be justice."

 _My name is Portgas D. Ace_.

"This would be your own sick power fantasy." Resignation, but anger like a bonfire behind those words would've been ideal—Ace might've made a martyr of himself that way, tug on a few heartstrings of everybody bearing witness. Unfortunately all he had left was bleakness. "I have a name given to me by my mother, I have a father who is _not_ Roger. I am _not_ nobody—"

The hand tightened in his hair and wrenched Ace's head back, choking off the end of Ace's sentence.

"You will be," the Admiral said, frostbite, "once I'm done with you."

* * *

Part two of the _prepare him_ order was oil. When the Corporal approached again, Ace managed to weather the pain against his scalp and head butt the Corporal hard. His angle wasn't right, so he only got the Corporal's chest, but Ace heard the loud grunt and the sound of a body hitting the platform floor anyway.

In the next moment, the Admiral retaliated by getting a boot on the center of Ace's back, and stomping Ace's ribcage to the floor.

"Struggling is futile," the Admiral said, which was just the stupidest line. So Ace's _your_ mom _is futile!_ was a perfectly adequate response. "Corporal, I'm getting impatient."

"Sorry A-Admiral, I—"

"Don't apologize, just do as you're _told_."

Ace would've said something about the Admiral needing to work on his control issues, had the Corporal not chosen that moment to shove two oil-slicked fingers right into Ace.

(A comment about the stick up the Admiral's ass at that point just would've been too on-the-nose, Ace felt.)

It was—violation. There really was no other way to cut it. With his chest pressed hard against the floor and his back bruising in the shape of the Admiral's boot, Ace contended with the feeling of the two fingers penetrating him. Those were a perfect stranger's fingers, for one, a _Marine's_ finger for another. The Corporal had no inherited beef against Ace, at least, so kept his motions to the same uncertain stutters as before.

Ace wanted to scream at him. _If you know this is wrong, then why don't you stop? If you're hesitating, why don't you quit?_

But he didn't stop. The fingers pulled out then in, twisting in encouragement for the ring of muscles to loosen. If Ace didn't feel so sick already, he'd have clenched his muscles tight around those fingers just to prove—

(What, that he still had some last, measly tatter of agency over his own body left? That when the Admiral got his cock into Ace, Ace could make him come faster by squeezing?)

Three fingers. The guy knew what he was doing, at least. Ace suddenly wondered about the Marines' policy on homosexuality, if they still ran that Don't Ask Don't Tell policy Ace has only heard of years ago. Then he wondered why the hell he was even worrying about the civil rights of the Marine digitally penetrating his ass right now.

"That's enough," the Admiral said. A specific kind of heat, like magma, had entered the throat of his voice. _There was the hatred_ , Ace thought. _He's going to hurt me because he thinks it's what I deserve_. "Step away, Corporal."

When the Corporal followed orders, the Admiral pulled Ace up and settled in behind Ace, his chest pressed to the bare skin of Ace's back. It took Ace a moment to realize, because how overheated his entire body felt, that the Admiral had his skin bared as well.

It pissed Ace off enough for Ace to attempt another head butt—but the seasoned Admiral, unlike his greenhorn counterpart, was more prepared. He caught Ace's head by the hair once more, and yanked until Ace was arched back painfully over the Admiral's shoulder.

"This _will_ be a scene of depravity," the Admiral murmured, almost agreeably. Ace wondered if his microphone picked up on the softer words, if the world heard this Marine's confession. "But that's because you are here, got that? Your filthy blood and all your sins."

"What, did you want to fuck Roger or something?" Ace laughed hysterically, a last-ditch effort to redirect and _distract_ himself from the _thing_ being pressed against his entrance. It felt humiliating to clench, but Ace did it anyways. The Admiral's free hand worked its way up to Ace's hole and pried him back apart. "He never deigned you worthy to even suck his dick, and now you want to take it out on his—"

_My name is Portgas D. Ace. I took my mother's name and my father's ink._

"You are _nobody_ ," the Admiral snarled against Ace's throat as he thrust home in one, harsh motion. Ace didn't manage to choke down the whole scream. "You never deserved this life. You should never have lived."

With Ace's arms and legs strapped to irons and the execution stage, the Admiral began to fuck Ace.

" _You are nobody_."

 _You could beat a dead horse with that rhythm he's setting_ , a corner of Ace's mind commented dryly, because, yeah, Ace _got_ it already, the point the Admiral was trying to make by displaying Ace like this, _using_ him like this. And it's not like it wasn't working. For all that Ace understood this was just a tactic of psychological warfare, Ace still _felt_ the sawing of a barely-lubricated cock in and out of him. Ace still _felt_ the harsh cast of heat on his entire torso like the attention of a million eyes watching him get violated.

Ace still felt his humanity, his right to existence dissipating with every thrust of the Admiral into him.

"You—"

"—are nobody, _yeah_ , so you've said." Ace was snarling, spittle flying but what the fuck did he care? His thighs were pressed open and his knees were rubbed raw on the rough wood graining. People were _watching_ him, and nobody was saying a goddamn thing. He really _has_ become nobody, just the idea of criminality that the Marines got to do with as they saw fit. "What else you got, old man?"

The hand not in Ace's hair _scored_ down Ace's chest, raising vicious red lines until they reached his cock. Then they scratched over Ace's cock too, handling it in a rough grip.

"The problem," the Admiral drawled, reaching down to Ace's balls and _pulling_ , "is Roger's _seed_. We should've castrated him first chance we got."

"Holy shit," Ace said numbly, breathing harsh around the pain being dealt to his genitals. "You _did_ want to fuck Roger."

"His death came too easily." The Admiral was spitting now too; Ace could feel it against the side of his face as the Admiral's vitriol was made _extremely_ clear at close range. "No mercy should've been shown him, and now I will show no mercy to his spawn."

"His _spawn_ —!" Ace had to fucking laugh, but the sound disappeared into a hiss as the Admiral pulled Ace's cock up against his stomach, and _pressed_. The rough treatment, the cock still pistoning in and out of Ace, meant Ace wasn't entirely soft. In fact, he was quickly becoming the opposite of soft, and really almost cried for it.

(Luckily the blindfold provided shelter for his expression as he blinked the tears back away.)

"Fucking disgusting," the Admiral growled right against Ace's throat, and Ace flinched hard, but still couldn't get away. "You don't get to come."

_But you—_

_Then why—_

Before his arrest, before stepping onto this execution stage for that matter, Ace didn't think he could hate his father more. But this Admiral behind him has provided him the shovel and axe to dig deeper into the pit of absolute abhorrence. _See what you've done to me?_ Ace wanted to howl. _See what you've made the world do to me?_

The Admiral's pace sped up. His hips slapped against Ace with loud, ugly sounds that Ace hoped everybody could hear loud and clear. Ace hoped this was being witnessed by hundreds—Ace hoped this was being _recorded._ So that evidence of what the Marines considered "justice" existed for the future to uncover and motherfucking _change_ , so that hopefully nobody else would ever have to go through what Ace has gone through again—

More squeezing and pressing. The Marine bastard couldn't even give Ace a proper goddamn handjob. But against all odds, it was working. Like climbing the stupid stairs to this stupid platform and stage, Ace was painfully but inevitably approaching climax in that bastard's grip. That meant he was going to be made to come in front of _everyone_ , that his enforced depravity was going to be seen by—

"Piece of scum," the Admiral hissed into Ace's ear, as he released Ace's dick and _slapped_ —

And Ace jerked forward, feeling the starting contraction of orgasm hitting and—

 _Ice_. Ace hissed, then yelled, then _screamed_ at the press of that _fucking icy blade against his dick and oh god, why, this motherfucker why would he_ —

Orgasm wrenched to a despicable stop, semen dribbled crampingly out of Ace's cock with none of the pleasure (however ill-gotten) that might've accompanied it. The blade, the same one that had nicked Ace's throat earlier, was so cold, and Ace finally placed the strange scraping sound of the knife being sheathed—it was the sound of metal scraping ice. The Admiral had a pocketed _cold_ _pack_ with the express purpose of icing out Ace's orgasm, to make some stupid shitty fucking point about Ace's undesirable blood and DNA and a humiliated, _violently_ bitter sob tore its way out of Ace's throat—

The Admiral's fingers clutched into the front of Ace's thigh as the man sped up his thrusts. Ace wanted to weep, could only feel his mouth hanging open as the Admiral fucked himself into Ace, reaching completion with an awful splash of heat.

That rough, gloved hand (sans knife now—it had been put away with that same dull scrape) fisted over Ace's cock once more, gathering the impotent semen in its palm. Then the Admiral stood, yanking Ace's head up right to smear the come all over Ace's mouth.

"I said you don't get to come," was the sneering, victorious declaration. Ace's senses were flooded, then overloaded into numb. He felt the Admiral's hand wipe itself clean on Ace's cheek, the cloth of his blindfold (tear-soaked now). He felt the Admiral's hands leave.

"Corporal, why don't you take a turn as well."

Felt the Admiral's boot hit his back again. This time, when Ace was kicked down, he didn't get back up.

"Admiral, I don't think I—"

"You're obviously hard, Corporal," the Admiral drawled. A voice, high and airy in the very back of Ace's mind, commented snidely about workplace harassment. "Just obey."

It was the Corporal's turn to kneel in behind Ace now. Ace wondered if it was worth summoning up the energy to fight. _No_ , he thought. _It's never fucking worth it_.

"How should I—"

"God, are you a virgin?" the Admiral despaired. Ace could hear some of the audience snicker, and wondered how the hell he was supposed to feel in this situation: bad for the Corporal? Schadenfreude?

Ace settled on numb instead. It was a far more bearable state of mind.

"Just fold his legs under and fuck yoi, it's not that hard."

_So to speak._

The Corporal did as the Admiral said, getting legs folded so that Ace's ass was up and presented. With his cheek still pressed into the ground, Ace could feel the trickle of the Admiral's come from out his hole and it was appalling enough for Ace to work up the heat to snarl—

"Fuck me already so I can be executed faster, alright?"

A gob of spit hit Ace's back. Right in the center of Pop's tattoo. The burning in Ace's lungs was humiliation and cold paralysis both.

"Whore," the Admiral said.

The Corporal finally found the wherewithal to fumble his cock—hard, as the Admiral accused—into Ace. This second stretch was—worse. A lot worse.

"Oh god," the Corporal was whispering, as sobs began to involuntarily shake out of Ace with every small movement. "Oh fuck oh fuck, are you—are you alright—"

" _Keep going_ ," Ace had to force out of his throat, when all he wanted to do was give in, go numb, and _die_ already. But here he was holding a Marine Corporal's hand through his own _rape_ , because the Corporal was on orders and Ace just wanted everything to end already. "Fuck me, just _do_ it already."

"You know you want to," said the Admiral, somewhere above, in the most mild tone Ace has heard from the bastard yet.

"That's an order," Ace breathed, with an ironic incredulous laugh just for himself, against the floor of the stage.

And the Corporal was nothing if not good at following orders. He fucked. He was perfectly adequate. He lasted.

He was a heat and an awfully petting hand along Ace's spine, and Ace was carried along the rhythm of sobbing once more. Everything was dark and so fucking _hot_ , even the lingering sensation of the icy blade against his still-flacid cock, and Ace breathed into the wet heat of his own tears and just _sank_ into the feeling, let himself _drop,_ and the heat became a flood that _rubbed_ itself all over Ace, and Ace just— He just—

* * *

The Corporal came to the sound of cheers and applause. His expression—the half-lidded but intense gaze, the parted mouth panting hot, the sheer amount of _love_ he radiated in every gesture he touched Ace with—went to frantic embarrassment in a snap. He pulled out in a hurry, and Ace moaned softly at the sensation.

* * *

"Alright, one last pan of the audience... And _cut_! That's a wrap on the filming, folks."

A smattering of polite applause, nothing like the one Ace and Deuce had just gotten onstage, came from the audience. Marco, on the stage as well and now on his knees undoing the chains strapping Ace down, shot Sabo a look of amusement.

Sabo quirked an eyebrow back, and got up from the director's seat with four bottles of water clutched in his hands.

Once his shoes hit the stage, of course Sabo made a beeline for Ace first. He crudely shouldered Deuce of the way, and held out two of the bottles. Ace had already been released from all his bonds, thanks to the joint effort of Deuce and Marco, and now sat gingerly sprawled on the stage wrapped in one of their company blankets.

He was smiling though, big and buzzy, face cleaned and blindfold long gone. Sabo felt the minor tension in his chest—the one that accompanied every scene like this—ease.

"Aftercare is meant for the participants in the scene, jerk," Deuce snapped at Sabo, scrambling protectively over to Ace's other side. Sabo calmly continued twisting open bottle caps for Ace and holding the water up to Ace's lips.

"And paychecks are meant for employees I've personally vetted and OK'd," Sabo returned with an empty smile. Ace sipped the water, squeezing Sabo's hand in gratitude. "On behalf of the entire studio, we appreciate our volunteer guest star tonight. We'll even validate your parking on your way out."

"Sabo." Sabo didn't bother looking because he already knew what expression Ace would wear to accompany that chastising tone. "Thank him properly already, won't you?"

So maybe Sabo did sneak glance; Ace's cheek, still mildly red with an imprint of their stage, lifted in a grin, along with the shiniest eyes for his boyfriend.

"You were really great tonight babe. _And_ you did us all a favor. Thanks. And oh, sorry for uh, head butting you earlier. Foreplay haha, amiright?"

Deuce's cheeks went red as well, and Sabo, far less endeared than Ace by the sight of this, rolled his eyes to make his displeasure known.

A cool water bottle pressed against Sabo's cheek, and Sabo blinked up at Marco, now standing above him.

"This one _is_ for me, right?"

"What does it matter, if you're already drinking out of it?" Sabo pointed out. "You know how seriously we take the exchange of bodily fluids around here."

Someone in the dispersing audience caught Marco's attention, and Sabo watched Marco pink slightly at whatever message was communicated (Sabo couldn't see around Ace's bundled shoulders), and wave the person away with something like an appreciative bow. It had been Koala's idea, to run live shows like this once a month out of their studio. It had to be kept under all kinds of radars of course, but that wasn't anything new. Plus, Sabo only ever let the most enthusiastic participants do it—hence, Ace and Marco.

(And Deuce, who had looked stoic enough from the get-go that Sabo had quite vehemently protested. But as always, Ace got his way, with the promise that he and Deuce had _truly_ communicated and this was something they both absolutely wanted.)

"I can't believe you really popped your shirt open," Ace snickered up at Marco, having already finished one bottle of water and now working on the other. "Isn't that a bit slutty for a Marine Admiral?"

Deuce was rubbing a hand up and down Ace's tattooed arm repeatedly, and Sabo eyed him, wanting to say that the inked symbol for Sabo was never coming off no matter how hard Deuce tried. Marco's water bottle popped onto the top of Sabo's head as a warning, like Marco was some kind of goddamn mindreader.

"Director's call yoi," Marco drawled. "But maybe you're right, and that's the line people will draw at realism."

"Piracy, taboo blood lines, rape role play on an execution stand," Sabo ticked off on his fingers, swiping the bottle irritably off his head, "and you think people are drawing the line at Marco's tits?"

"If anything they'd be the _draw_ ," Deuce mumbled. Sabo stared.

Then Sabo turned to Ace, his smile all teeth.

"Why brother, if you wanted Marco to third, you should've just asked. I would've given you the friends and family discount."

"You are _not_ ," Marco declared loudly for the benefit of everybody within earshot, because he's been ten times more the dramatic diva since Sabo first suggested he got in front of the camera, "my pimp."

Sabo stood and turned, smoothing a hand down the center of Marco's chest with a smirk.

"Darling," he said, " _pimp_ just means _boyfriend_ in Pirate. We all know this."

"But you're not a pirate," Marco pointed out, voice gone all low and husky the way it was prone to in Sabo's presence. Never mind that he'd just gotten off inside Ace fifteen minutes ago. "So how about it Director? Wanna be the one on the execution stand next?"

"Hm, but I think I like the thought of you in chains better."

"Oh, role reversal?" Ace perked up. He was swinging his half-finished water at Deuce, in a complicated gesture that neither Deuce nor Sabo could safely interpret as _here, have some of mine._ "Sounds like a fun idea for a sequel night. Tonight was well-received, wouldn't you say?"

" _Hot twink pirate fucked by two Marines on death row_ was and promises to be a huge hit, yes," Sabo replied, "once we get the editing team on it. Cut out all of your boytoy's more disgustingly smitten expressions. This is why we don't employ significant others, Ace."

" _Excuse—_ " Ace's lips were parted in a moue of offense, and Sabo greatly looked forward to which point Ace would choose to protest. "I'm—I'm a twunk."

Sabo burst out laughing, and slapped Ace appreciatively on the leg.

"Alright, I'll make sure to get your billing right. And does the pirate twunk's Uber driver want a moniker, or should I just go with the truth?"

"What's the truth?" Ace asked, intrigued, because he was his brother's brother.

"I was gonna go with _desperate_ or _fumbling_ , y'know, depending on SEO rankings—"

"I don't _need_ any moniker, thanks," Deuce declared quite desperately as he fumbled his bottle of water. "Just whatever my character was—a Corporal?"

Before Sabo could keep riling Deuce up, Marco rubbed a hand over the back of Sabo's neck, clearly intent to distract.

(And Sabo wasn't distracted; he was just socially gracious enough to let Marco have his way. Never let it be said that he didn't do things for his boyfriend.)

"Alright yoi, if you'll pardon me and Ace, we really do gotta debrief—and that's an _outdated_ joke Sabo, we've all heard it a million times already so don't say it. I'll catch you later in your office."

Ace raised his arms from his blanket bundle and Marco, the traitor, automatically reached down to pick him up in a bridal carry. Ace was grinning like he's just had fifteen orgasms in a row, not like, well, a ruined orgasm and two cocks in his ass. Some straggler in the crowd wolf-whistled, which just served to make Ace more smug like the exhibitionist prick he was.

"I've been telling Sabo that I'm your actual favorite for ages," Ace said conspiratorially to Marco. Deuce trailed behind them with far less anxiety than Sabo would've hoped for. Holy shit, maybe they really _did_ want Marco to third.

"Be subtle about it," Marco muttered back, nothing subtle about the way he grinned at Sabo all pleased and shit. _I thought you'd be glad I was getting along with your family_ , Marco probably would say later back home. "He's my ride home tonight."

"Hear that Sabo? Marco's been stifling his love for me this whole time."

"Yeah well, it's about time _he_ faked it for a change," Sabo smiled back. Marco was a little bit too heart-eyed for someone who's just been accused of being incapable of sexually pleasing his partner.

"I'll come find you in a bit," he promised. "Wouldn't want to miss my ride yoi."

"Bye fucker," Ace said affectionately as he smacked a loud kiss to Marco's cheek. Sabo had to restrain himself from reaching out and flicking Ace's forehead, as they walked off talking about icy knives and temperature play.

"Sabo."

That was Deuce, getting his attention. Marco and Ace kept their eyes pointedly forward as they walked away.

"Tonight was fun for me," Deuce said, more somberly than Sabo wanted or needed. It's not that he's never had a civil conversation with his sworn brother's cherished boyfriend-whatever, it was just that he's never allowed one to happen. "Ace mentioned you had some concerns for my well-being, so I, I guess I just wanted to assure you. Thank you for letting me do the shoot with Ace and Marco. I know I wasn't the best performer, but I hope I didn't do too poorly."

Seriously, what the hell did Ace see in this guy anyways? This "thoughtfulness" and "politeness?" This shameless "consideration for the welfare of people around him?" Sabo was truly disgusted.

"You stood aside when I told you to and fucked when I told you to," Sabo answered stiffly. "Didn't manage to fuck anything up so. Put adult film star on your LinkedIn, I guess. Connect with Marco, he's fucked everyone who's anyone; we'll make you an AVN nominee in no time."

Deuce nodded solemnly, but a little pink in his ear gave away his generalized embarrassment and a little twinkle in his eyes gave away his—wait, _amusement_? He shouldn't be amused; Sabo wasn't trying to amuse him.

"You and Marco should come to dinner sometimes," he said, and Sabo _knew_ , alright? He knew Deuce and Ace had just moved in together and were enjoying disgusting domestic bliss. He wanted none of the cooties, nor the inevitable reminder that his childhood codependency partner (they just called themselves sworn brothers for short) was moving on to some steady, long-term picture that didn't exactly have a lot of room for Sabo in it. He _knew_.

"Guess you'll want to make small talk over moscato next?" he sneered, defaulting to snippy because neither Ace nor Marco were here to check him on it. "Find some interests we share, figure out things we have in common to do on weekends."

"Well I definitely have an idea for a common interest we can do together."

"And what's that?"

"How about Marco."

Sabo... stared. Deuce went red again, but this time it was embarrassment tinged with triumph. He even patted Sabo on the shoulder as he started making his way to the dressing rooms after Marco and Ace.

"This Sunday, perhaps."

"Oh, wow," Koala said, flipping up from under the stage because she was a shameless eavesdropper and Sabo's partner in everything but Marco. "He seems fun."

"What a pity he's gonna die from arsenic poisoning the next time I see him," Sabo commented vaguely. "Do you think he'd like a pie?"

"Aw." Koala thrust Sabo's least favorite mop into his hands, and gestured at the sweat-stained stage. It was moments like this that made Sabo really regret not being enough of a dick to leave the clean-up to unpaid interns or something. "So you _are_ going to dinner then."

"I really do think I can get Ace to pay to fuck Marco though—"

"Hey, save your roleplaying for behind bedroom doors or in front of my cameras, okay? We are and never will be LARPers, Sabo. We made a blood pact."

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Ace POVs a scene where he is raped by two Marines on the execution stand. The context is that he is an adult performer, and this is a live & filmed show they're roleplaying: Ace is the pirate, Marco is the Marine Admiral, and Deuce is the Marine Corporal. The rape is played 100% for real though, at least from Ace's 3rd person limited narration.
> 
> the joke is that they are 100% LARPers. fucking nerds with fully developed angsty backstories that they turn into kinky sex scenarios. y'know, as we all do. I sent myself into hysterical laughs at the thought of making Ace's execution just a Whole Roleplay Scene, esp in the context of like, Our Own Aftermath, where Ace does absolutely get off on.... existence kink?? depersonalization, sensory deprivation, all that.
> 
> (And, stupid Marco's stupid lines as the stupid Admiral. Imagine the Sabo-driving-Marco-home scene where Sabo gives him shit like "really? You couldn't think of anything else to say beside _you're nobody_?" Marco's like "shut up i'm bad at improv," and Sabo's like, "well i certainly noticed you practicing Yes And, when Ace asked if you wanted to fuck _Roger_ —" "I said leave me alone!")
> 
> My [Tumblr!](https://touchmycoat.tumblr.com/)


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